


Keep Getting Stranger (I Do)

by CallipygianGoldfish



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Howl's Moving Castle Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Wizards, First Meetings, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Shapeshifting, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), demon!adam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 05:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallipygianGoldfish/pseuds/CallipygianGoldfish
Summary: Being the oldest child, Aziraphale has always known he was never destined for adventure. Yet when he is cursed by the Wizards of the Waste, Aziraphale is forced to get help from the only other Wizard nearby, the wicked Crowley. The castle roaming the moors is full of magic, and Aziraphale must battle fire demons, hair dye, and a box of ducks to break his curse and find true love.





	1. In Which Aziraphale Talks to Books

**Author's Note:**

> I just love Howl’s Moving Castle, both the book and the film, and once you’ve pictured Crowley as Howl, there’s no going back….
> 
> Title from Seeming’s Stranger <3

Being the oldest child of three, Aziraphale knows that he’s never destined for adventure. It is common knowledge that the oldest often fails first and has little chance of an interesting future. In fairy tales and legends, it is always the youngest that fights the dragon and meets the prince, and as Aziraphale grows, he quickly realises he is in no such position. Instead, he takes to managing the family bookstore, and concentrates on setting up his sibling’s fortunes in the best way he can.

Gabriel is the easiest, as being the middle brother means that he is destined for a high paying apprenticeship in the city to the east. Michael, the youngest, is a little trickier, but has always been a beautiful child and grows into a handsome young person. After having several customers in the bookstore who were there merely to enquire about Michael’s marriage status, Aziraphale suggests that they might like to work in the bakery across the town square. By working there, Michael can peruse the large numbers of suitors that come by to try their luck, and the owners of the bakery benefit from a sharp rise in sales of pastries, especially when Michael is on the till.

Aziraphale on the other hand, knows that he is destined for drudgery. Being the middle child means that he has no exciting destiny ahead of him, and he reassures his siblings that he is perfectly happy to take over the management of the family bookstore while they go off adventuring, and before long he has been comfortably running it for many years. He doesn’t mind, not really, and his books provide plenty of adventure, with absolutely no more required, thank you very much. 

A week before May Day, there is great talk in the small village of Tadfield, and it transpires that the great Wizard Crowley’s castle has been seen on the moors behind the square. The shop floor girls blush and titter when they talk about the mysterious Mr. Crowley, and the adults tut and whisper in darkened doorways. Children are warned to take care, lest their hearts be preyed upon, but Aziraphale shakes his head and takes no heed of the gossip. He knows the wicked wizard would most definitely not be interested in middle-aged booksellers who had never left the village, but he did take care to walk the girls home each night, just in case.

The castle itself never stays in one area, constantly roaming the hills behind the village and sometimes venturing so far away that only a distant chimney can be seen. If the castle is close by, the grinding and creaking of the joints can be heard when the village is still at night, and Aziraphale often falls asleep to the notion of adventure, magic, and charming young men.

When fair week arrives, Aziraphale closes up early to let the shop girls enjoy the sunshine and the festivities. They try to drag him to the dancing in the square, but he excuses himself and tells them to get out, have fun, and bring him back some ice cream. He’s restocking the shelves when the bell jingles.

“I’m sorry, we’re closing up for today,” he says, rounding the corner. “The store reopens tomorrow if you’re – oh.” 

A man was standing by the romance paperbacks. This in itself would not have been unusual and not a matter for comment, but this man in particular took Aziraphale’s breath away. He gapes a little at the flowing cloak, luscious red curly hair and the dark glasses until the man turns his way.

“Ah. My apologies,” the man says with a rakish grin. “I’ll come back later.” He turns to leave, and Aziraphale finally closes his jaw.

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” he says, not wanting to have to stop gazing at the man’s face. “What was it you were after?”

“Just a wander, really. I was in town.” He casts a thoughtful eye around, and Aziraphale wonders if he’s looking at the latest romances or fantasy. “Well, as I’m here, I don’t suppose you have a copy of Grimoire authentique?”

“We do.” Aziraphale’s poor frazzled brain manages to communicate with his feet, and takes him to the magic and wizardries aisle, where the man follows. “First and second addition, but if you’re looking for a more in-depth approach, might I recommend the version edited by Witch Pentstemmon? She makes most incantations run more smoothly.”

“Ah, perfect.” Holding the book in one hand, the man gives it a precursory skim. “I’ll take it.”

“Fabulous.” Aziraphale wills his mind to come up with something witty and clever that would make the man laugh. It fails miserably, but attempts it nonetheless. “Now remember, don’t drink and divine!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” The man smiles bemusedly, and Aziraphale is already daydreaming about being swept off his feet to a carriage with a pony and a house in the countryside. “Oh, and while I’m here, I don’t suppose you know someone called Michael?”

Aziraphale’s heart plops into his shoes like a lump of granite dropped in a puddle. Of course he would be here because he’d heard about Michael. Aziraphale reasons that it’s just his luck as the oldest child to have a little excitement in his life, only to find out that it was meant for somebody else. The man had probably just bought the book as an excuse to ask about them.

“Ah, yes. They now work at the bakery, I believe.” Believe my ass, as if Aziraphale hadn’t spent a week cajoling Mr and Mrs Young to let Michael apprentice there. “It’s May Day, I’m sure they’ll be open for the festivities.”

“Thank you.” The man pays and leaves, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Aziraphale as the door closes behind him. Aziraphale smiles politely until the man is out of view, then collapses against the register. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He glares angrily at the cover of a romance laid next to the till, and picks it up to re-shelve it. 

Muttering under his breath at the book, he shoves it in a gap on a shelf, then turns around and grabs it again. “That’s not where you live. It’s not your fault I know, but dear lord can you just not be so happy for once?” Finally reaching the romances, he shelves it correctly and finds another out of place. “And you’re just even worse, all joyful endings and never a chore in sight. Gah!”

He decides that the shelves need a good clean as well, taking off most of the books and placing them on the floor. Angrily running a cloth over the bookcase does help a little, and Aziraphale almost doesn’t hear when the bell chimes again as he’s dusting the top of the case while balanced precariously on a ladder. He does, however, smell the visitor. Stepping down, he notes idly that they were doing an awful lot of trade for a closed bookstore, and he sighs to himself.

“I’m sorry sir, the bookstore is closed.” Aziraphale’s eyes are drawn to the man’s dark clothes and he frowns as he realises there is two of them, but the shadows surrounding their legs means that he can’t tell where one man starts and the other man ends. The room seems to grow darker, and Aziraphale can’t remember whether there was a forecast for rain. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“Yessss, closed.” One of the men tilts his head at Aziraphale, and darts a forked tongue out of his mouth. “It would seeeem ssssoo.” 

Staring at both men’s heads, Aziraphale realises with a start where the smell is coming from. What he’d first taken for greasy hair was in fact a large, damp, amphibious shape draped over the man’s head, and the other one was definitely growing some sort of mould on his. With an unnerving stare, Mouldy-Head closes the door behind them, and slides the lock over. Aziraphale swallows heavily.

“Is there something I can help you with, gentlemen?” He tries not to quiver too much, and puts on his best stern voice. “If not, I will have to ask you to leave.”

“Not before we have some wordsss.” Toad-Head man almost starts to hiss, and Aziraphale thinks that he’s doing it for the attention until he has to shake his head to stop it. “I’m afraid that we have heard some thingsss about you and the company you keep.” He casts a hand towards Aziraphale, who blinks and wonders what false gossip was incubating in the village. 

“I’m afraid I don’t quite know what you mean,” he says bravely as both men step forward in unison. “I think you might have the wrong shop.”

“Not at all.” Toad-head picks up a book beside him in a taloned hand, and sniffs at the spine. “We take special care when someone sets themselves up against the wizards of the waste. Especially in wizardry matters.”

“The wizards of the waste?” Aziraphale croaks out, and Mouldy-Head raises his eyebrows.

“We come with a warning,” he says. “Don’t meddle in things that aren’t yours.” Flinging a hand out towards Aziraphale, Mouldy-Head cackles and Toad-Head leers a bit more. “Let’s see if you’ll ever have someone love you like you are now.”

Aziraphale can only gape as the men sweep out of the shop, leaving a lingering scent of mustiness that seems at odds with the bright sunshine outside. There’s a tingling feeling running over his scalp, running down his spine, and he wonders if they also had fleas. Shaking his head, he turns back to the shelf he was cleaning, and shakily replaces the books, wondering what on Earth they were talking about. After deciding he was done for the day, he finally walks over to lock the door and close the blinds on the festival. Blinds half drawn, he catches sight of his reflection in the shop window and gasps.

Oh no. There must be some mistake. Slowly but surely, he raises a shaky hand and tracks its movement in the window reflection as he waves. Gently patting his face, he reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, stopping short when his fingers collided with something hard. There, nestled between curls, was a perfect pair of goat horns. Slightly ridged and curved back against his scalp, he turns his head as he attempts to match up the reflection in the glass with his own head.

A sinking feeling pooling in his stomach, he glances down and yelps. His beautiful cream suit had split at the seams, trousers coming apart above what looked like very, very hairy legs. Thick fur erupts from where the fabric has broken, and Aziraphale whimpers as he watches another square of fabric rip slowly as the hair under it grows. He gently shakes a torn boot off his foot and stares in despair at a pair of hooves. Hooves. Blinking, he reaches down to poke the hard surface that used to be his foot, and then kicks the wall next to the door. 

“Ow!” He flinches as he feels it reverberate through his bones, and kicks the wall again, just to make sure. “Fuck it!” 

Aziraphale might have been the oldest child and not particularly destined for greatness, but he had certainly read his fair share of books, giving him an intelligence that other people often found unnerving. However, there was nothing in his library that might have prepared him for being mistakenly cursed into a fawn. His breath grows quicker, and he remembers to yank down the blinds and slide the lock on the door with shaky hands. He takes a step back towards the stock room, before collapsing against a bookcase when his legs don’t seem to like walking in his new hooves. 

“Oh, bugger it.” Aziraphale drags himself upright and removes his other boot along with the rest of his trousers. Tottering over to his desk, he scribbles a quick note to the shop staff coming in tomorrow, and high-tails it up the stairs to his little flat. “Don’t panic, don’t panic. Everything is fine.”

He couldn’t sell books like this. Lord above, he couldn’t even walk in a straight line, let alone face the village tomorrow. He risks a glance in his wardrobe mirror and squeaks again. The fur extended up to his waistline, a rich brown colour that would have been enviable had it not been on his thighs. He pats it hesitantly, and found it softer than he’d imagined, but even the curves of his legs are different. No wonder he could hardly walk he notes, as he balances on one leg to inspect a hoof. A horrible thought strikes him, and turning around slowly he looks back over his shoulder in the mirror to see a tiny goat tail at the base of his spine.

“Oh no,” he says to himself, still staring at his back. “That’s… Not great.” He shifts his hips and the tuft of hair wiggles, as if laughing at his plight.

There was nothing for it. In order to lift the curse, he would have to go to a wizard. The wizards of the waste had clearly got the wrong person, as the most exceptional thing that Aziraphale had done lately was move the non-fiction into the corner where the biography used to be. Aziraphale stumbles his way through packing a small bag with some food and a book or two, and hesitates when looking in his wardrobe. The suits he was used to wearing were out the picture completely, and he spends a few minutes trying to pull on some loose underwear before giving up. He eventually chooses the longest coat that he can find, to hide the abomination that is now his tail, and he doesn’t even bother looking at shoes as he apparently now has inbuilt ones. At the back of a cupboard he finds a large shawl, and he ties it around his waist, hoping that it covers the worst of the hair. He leaves his horns as they are, as his attempts to stuff a hat over them just produces a holey hat. Hobbling down the stairs, Aziraphale lets himself out the shop carefully, locking the door behind and hiding the key back in the outside letter box for the girls tomorrow. 

He heads to the moor, and for lack of a better word, trots up the hill behind the shop. The hooves add a few inches to his height, and his new thighs cant his balance forward so that he is forced to totter instead of stride. Once he gets momentum going, his feet are more than happy to continue to go in a straight line, but he does find it rather difficult to stop. He trips at least twice, groaning as the stones underneath him dig into his palms, and he wonders how his own feet could feel so alien. 

The sound of the May Day festival fades behind him, and he hasn’t got far when he has to stop to catch his breath. Aziraphale sits stiffly on a rock overlooking the village, and when he finally gets back up, he finds that his new legs are causing his joints to seize due to such a difference in posture. He’s about to think that things can’t get much worse when his hooves sink into the ground and he realises he’s stopped in the middle of a bog. When he pulls his feet out with a squelching noise, thick mud clings to the fur on his legs, and he’s pretty sure he sees some worms fly away from him as he shakes it off.

“Oh, bugger it.” 

He resigns himself to a night of walking with wet hooves, and trudges on.


	2. In Which Aziraphale Explores a Castle

By the time Aziraphale reaches the top of the moor, dusk has fallen and he is cold, wet, and very, very hungry. The bread and cheese he picked up didn’t last long, the moorland drizzle is getting heavier, and his new thighs ache with the constant trotting. His coat sticks to his back, the shawl around his legs providing little protection from the cold, and he’s just about to give up for the night when the path turns around the side of a hill. There, on a flat plain below him, was walking the castle. 

Or rolling, more like. The black, sleek sides of the castle are connected to some sort of contraption below it, and Aziraphale counts at least four wheels and a pair of spindly legs sticking out the sides. He breathes a sigh of relief and quickly winds his way through the bracken and down towards the castle, which is still meandering over the slopes.

There are two bright saucers on what seems to be the front of the castle, and Aziraphale follows the light that they cast as he stumbles after it. Finally catching up, he searches for a door, and trots alongside the castle as it creaks and clatters. 

“Open, please!” He knocks on the nearest bit of metal he can find, and the castle picks up pace, shuddering sideways away from him. “Oh, darn it. Stop!” he says with a shriek, and the castle seems to vibrate before slowing down to a walking pace again. Thanking the castle as he fumbles for a handle, he opens the door inwards and the castle moves away again. Without another thought, he steps quickly inside and tugs the door shut behind him.

It’s dark with no lamps alight yet, and there’s steps leading up to an empty kitchen with a small fire in one wall. Eyes taking a while to adjust, he walks unsteadily and his poor hooves collide with one too many steps on the way. Collapsing into a cosy armchair near the fire place, he peels off his sodden coat with a whimper and pokes at his feet. His hooves themselves seem fine, and he takes his sodden shawl off. Flicking some water off his legs, the droplets land with a hiss on the hot hearthstone in the fire.

“Gross.”

A voice cuts through the silence of the castle, and Aziraphale bolts upright and looks around. Apart from a dirty skull placed on a stack of papers on the kitchen table, there’s no one else he can see who might be able to speak. He narrows his eyes into the gloom, but only sees a potted plant and a broom cupboard, so puts the voice down to a stressed imagination. He settles back down in front of the fire. If anyone had heard him come in they would be around by now, and Aziraphale suspects he’s in the servant’s quarters, judging by the minimal surfaces and dark patches on the walls. Eyes growing heavy, he sighs as the warmth from the fire reaches his shirt, and he gently prods a few lumps of grass out from between what used to be his toes.

“Oh, that’s manky, no one wants to see that.”

Right, that’s it. Aziraphale slowly puts his foot back on the floor and sits carefully on the edge of his armchair. There’s no movement out the corner of his eye, and he can’t hear any footsteps on the stairs. The only thing he can see that’s vaguely humanoid is a shape in the fire, and it’s a ridiculous idea, really, but he could just about imagine smoky eyes and a grinning mouth with fiery teeth. To his shock, he realises that the fire is in fact a face, and he leans back as it opens up its mouth at him.

“Finally cottoned on, have we?”

Aziraphale stutters and gapes as the face laughs at him. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise.”

“Not many do, don’t worry.” The face lists to the side, and a flame comes out, as if stretching towards him. “Toss us another log, would ya?”

Aziraphale reaches for a bit of wood and carefully holds it out to the flaming hand. It gobbles it down, seeming to almost inhale the twig.

“What are you?” Aziraphale asks slowly, watching as the twigs are quickly devoured by the face.

“I’m a fire demon,” the face says with a crackle. “Mighty and scary, all shall bow to me!”

“You’re a what?” He feels his eyes boggle as the fire sticks a tongue out at him.

“A fire demon. Ish. I mean, once they wanted me to rule the world, or something like that.” The face rolls its eyes, and Aziraphale blinks. “Didn’t really fancy that.”

“No?” 

“Not really. And what are you, then? Some kind of bespelled human thing?”

“Thing? Human, thank you,” Aziraphale says with a splutter. “Why, do you get many people turning up in the middle of the night?”

“Well, now you mention it.” The demon hums at him, and Aziraphale wonders if he’s accidentally nodded off and started dreaming. “We did have that fae come in last week, but she only wanted a potion for her ears, so not really a situation like yours.”

“Like mine?”

The fire seems to consider him. “You looked cold.”

“I was cold.” No longer chilly, Aziraphale realises his coat is almost dry, and shuffles closer to the face. “Thank you.”

“No worries.” The demon sniffs and introduces himself. “I’m Adam. Destroyer of worlds, harbinger of doom, yada yada yada.”

Aziraphale raises his eyebrows. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Aziraphale. Cursed human, apparently.”

“Yeah, no one else is going to see that, sorry kid.” Adam the demon, destroyer of worlds and harbinger of doom, sticks his fiery tongue out. “Bit like my curse, I’m afraid. Hey, you wanna break mine and I’ll break yours?”

Aziraphale has read enough fantasy to know that this was a sure way to get himself enthralled for the rest of time, and so he turns the offer down politely. The face chatters on happily and becomes background noise, and Aziraphale’s ears only prick up when he hears Wizard Crowley’s name.

“… so basically, then Anathema poured the water all over me, Crowley just laughed, and I just about scraped by with my life. Turns out you _can_ set a demon’s farts alight, they’re just already on fire, eh?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. Do you think Crowley will be back tonight?” It was already late evening, and Aziraphale couldn’t bear the thought of being cast out to the damp moors again. If he could just remain in the servant’s quarters until the morning, then they can have a conversation and hopefully get this dratted curse lifted.

“Nah, he’s away for the night. Probably down in Soho, knowing him.” Adam waves a hand to the door. “

“Excellent.” A weight off his chest, Aziraphale settles in happily. The armchair is growing on him, and seems just right for an evening kip. “I’ll just wait here for him then, shall I?”

“He won’t like this, you know.” 

“I don’t care,” Aziraphale says happily, hooves slowly warming through as the fire crackles. Adam looks out at him, and Aziraphale’s eyes grow heavy again watching as the flames bob up and down. He’s sound asleep before he realises, and Adam watches him carefully into the night, occasionally helping himself to logs near the hearth.

*

Aziraphale wakes slowly to find a woman stood by the fire, laying another log on the hearth. She’s wearing a long, dark blue coat, which she puts across the back of a chair to dry out. He closes his eyes again as she mutters to the fire, and although he remembers a little from last night, until he hears the fire demon’s voice it all seems like a distant memory.

“You want to tell me why there’s a satyr in our kitchen, Adam?” The lady speaks softly and Aziraphale struggles to place the accent. 

“Nah, not really.” Aziraphale hears Adam snigger, and tries to even out his own breathing. “Think he’s a fawn. He was out on the moors last night.”

“And you brought him in? What did I say about waifs and strays, hmm?”

“That we should adopt more?”

“No. You’re as bad as Crowley at times, you know.” The woman sighs and Aziraphale yawns, stretching dramatically to show he was awake. He cracks an eye to see the woman staring at him with narrowed eyes. 

“Hello,” he says. “What a nice place this is.” Mentally berating his brain, he casts his eyes around the kitchen. Dawn must have been breaking outside, as the few beams of light that the shutters let in were highlighting the dust motes in the air and falling upon the table. He tries desperately to think of something that would explain his intrusion, and fails. “I’m Aziraphale. I’m ah, a friend of Wizard Crowley?”

“Mm hmm. Anathema,” she says, pointing to herself. Sounding unconvinced, she glances at his feet. “Where do you two know each other from then?”

“Well, I, uh…” Aziraphale trails off, and gives up. “Okay, fine. I don’t know him, I need his help.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m a fawn,” he says plaintively, and Anathema nods as if this was a perfectly reasonable explanation. 

“Oh, right,” she says. “Perhaps a touch of hoof rot?”

“Not really, it’s more – wait, hoof rot?” That sounds disgusting. Aziraphale once again mentally curses the wizards of the waste, and tries to explain his situation. “Never mind, I need him to- to, oh come on, I need him to- ah!”

Try as he might, his tongue kept on getting tied in knots, and he stutters while Anathema looks on in pity. With a groan, Aziraphale puts his head in his hands and stares at Adam in the fireplace. 

“I see,” Anathema says. “Well, while you’re waiting, do you want any breakfast?”

Stomach rumbling at the thought of food, Aziraphale nods quickly. “Oh, yes please.”

“Great. We’ve got oatmeal or oatmeal.”

“And eggs?” There’s a punnet of eggs on the table near Adam, and Anathema shakes her head.

“No, unfortunately not. Only Crowley cooks. And not even well at that.”

“That’s ridiculous. Adam, would you be a dear and cook some eggs for us? Oh, and any bacon if you have it?” Aziraphale stands up with a slight totter, and tests out his legs again. They seem to be holding up well, despite the night walking over the moors, and he’s not quite so doddery as he fetches the eggs from the side.

“Uh, nah, I’d rather not, you see-” Adam stops midsentence as Aziraphale puts on his best puppy-dog eyes. “Fine. But only one pan!”

“Oh, thank you! What a good demon you are.” He carefully lays the eggs in the hot pan, and Anathema brings some plates from the side. He’s just about to put the bacon in when the door is flung open with a crash against the wall, and Adam pipes up.

“Soho door!”

“Yeah, no shit.” The newcomer flings his boots into the wall and skips up the stairs to the kitchen area, dumping his bag on the table. “Anathema, did you get that spell done yet?”

“Nope,” Anathema says, popping the ‘p’ as if it was bubble-gum in her mouth while sorting through a cutlery drawer. “We’ve got a visitor.”

“Oh yeah?” The man turns to Aziraphale stood next to the fire with the pan and walks forward, hips swinging dangerously. With a start, Aziraphale recognises the man as the customer who was interested in Michael at the bookshop earlier, and his heart sinks as he realises who’s castle he is sitting in. How could he have been so stupid? It must have been pure luck that the wizard didn’t do away with him in the bookstore yesterday, and he thinks he’s had a lucky escape when suddenly he thinks about Michael. His stomach clenches, and he resolves to head back down to Tadfield to check in on the bakery at the next opportunity. 

“Who the hell are you?” Wizard Crowley frowns at him. “And where the hell have I seen you before?”

“I am a total stranger,” Aziraphale lies without a twitch. “Would you like some eggs?”

“Mmm.” Crowley turns to Anathema. “Did you invite him in?”

“No, Adam did.”

“Adam?” Crowley raises his eyebrows at the fire, and Adam shrugs with a flame.

“He looked sad. And you were out gallivanting.”

“Gallivanting!” Aziraphale snorts involuntarily. “More like eating the hearts of innocent young girls.”

Taking off his glasses, Crowley’s eyes narrow at him, and Aziraphale is struck by the slitted pupils and gold. “You must be from Tadfield, then.”

“So what if I am?” 

“_So what if I am_,” Crowley mimics him and wipes a hand across his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Because if you are, I eat the souls of orphans and skin cats for fun. Or perhaps steal the hearts of young girls. I am ever so mean, you know.”

“Yeah, that was my idea,” Anathema looks up, pleased. “I helped with the cats one.”

“I’ll reserve further judgement until I see any evidence to the contrary,” Aziraphale says primly, turning over the bacon. 

Crowley shakes his head and slots his sunglasses back on his nose. “Whatever. So why are you here? Apart from to clean out my pantry?”

Aziraphale launches into his explanation of how he was mistakenly cursed and could the Wizard Crowley do something about it, thank you very much. 

“I’m Aziraphale, and, your, wizard, ah, gack!” He shakes his head and wiggles his jaw in an attempt to get the words out, but however much he tries, they don’t come out. “I’m, I’m-”

Anathema watches him struggle with a frown, and finishes off his sentence for him.

“Our new cook. I mean, we’ve never got any time, so I thought we might as well have some hot food now and then. Not all of us can survive on takeaway.”

“Not for lack of trying. You wanted a chef?” Crowley asks Anathema, who shrugs, and he looks doubtfully back at Aziraphale. “Are you any good?”

Aziraphale has two seconds to think about it. “Yes. Obviously. I’m your new cook, and cleaner, and uh, decorator. This place needs a real sort out, and I’m your man. General dogsbody, that’s me.” He tries for his best customer service smile and probably ends up grimacing, but Crowley doesn’t notice.

“Hmm. Pan please,” Crowley says, holding out a hand for the frying pan. Aziraphale passes it over and Adam looks up hopefully as Crowley tosses him a bit of bacon fat.

“So, I can stay?” 

Crowley makes another non-committal noise, and snaps his fingers at the cabinet behind the table. “Plates, Anathema.”

The table quickly laid, Crowley tosses Adam the discarded eggshells, which he greedily munches through as the humanoids have breakfast. Occasionally the quiet is broken by Anathema’s murmurings as she studies a book in her hand, and Crowley will nod back at her. Aziraphale seems to be forgotten about, and that’s just the way he likes it. Being the oldest child always means you can’t draw too much attention to yourself, or you might end up being sacrificed for a younger sibling’s revenge story.

Crowley and Anathema leave after breakfast, swinging a knob next to the door handle around to a different colour. Aziraphale watches them go, and when the door locks, trots over to the shutters and throws them open. Light streams into the kitchen, complete with the sound of gulls and a busy market. Puzzled, Aziraphale cranes his neck and finds that the window overlooks a harbour, complete with clinking boats and a fish stall across the road from him. 

“That’s Porthaven,” Adam says behind him. Aziraphale goes to the door he’d entered from the moors earlier, and tugs the handle. It doesn’t open, and he’s just starting to curse himself for being a naive idiot who deserves to get his heart eaten when Adam suggests he turn the knob to blue. Wrenching the door open, he sees the moors spinning past him as the castle rolls over the hills, and he dashes again to the window where he can see the sea. Huh. He shouldn’t really be so surprised, as it is a magic castle after all, but he still turns back and forth between the moor and the ocean, blinking at the sight of the fishing boats.

“You’re letting the cold in.” Adam blows a raspberry and Aziraphale rapidly shuts the door. 

“Where do the other colours go?” he says in wonder. 

“Tadfield moor, Soho, Porthaven and I don’t think we’ve got the purple one connected at the moment. Crowley’s from Soho so that one gets used a lot, and the Porthaven one’s for business.”

“Amazing.” Aziraphale opens a window and breathes in the sea air. “This is amazing.”

“Glad you like it.” What might have been Adam’s chest puffs up and he wiggles his head. “Made all the portals myself, I did.”

“How wonderful!” He beams back at Adam who flames happily. “And the rest of the castle is upstairs?”

“Rest of the castle?” Adam laughs. “There’s nothing else, I’m afraid. Few bedrooms, but that’s it. And the pantry, but there’s nothing in there. Actually, if you’re doing the cooking now, maybe there will be.”

“Cooking? Oh yes of course,” Aziraphale says quickly. “Do you think they’ll be back for lunch?”

“Anathema, maybe.”

“Lovely. And can I go out there?” He gestures to the market stalls outside the window. 

“Don’t see why not,” Adam says. “Just knock when you want to come back in.”

“Thank you.” Aziraphale grabs a basket from under the table and wraps his now dry shawl back around his waist. He can’t do much about the horns, but he suspects that no one will say anything if he doesn’t draw attention to them. He’s never had the chance to see the ocean before, and he explores the market for the rest of the morning, picking up fresh fish and vegetables from the various stalls, along with some more bacon from the butcher. Only the woman at the bread stall remarks upon his legs, and he makes some vague comments about the weather until she gives up asking.

When he gets back to the door he came from, laden down with food, the house is inconspicuous with a small plaque above the door declaring it the residence of the Great and Magnificent Wizard Crawly. He tuts at the arrogance and knocks on the door, which swings open to the kitchen. Vegetables prepped and ready for lunch, he spends a few hours pottering around, and opens a few doors to find the bathroom and a small pantry. He carefully doesn’t touch any of the grime around the shower and sink, resolving to do a little tidying later on. 

He clears away the last of the breakfast things and sweeps the kitchen, carefully moving the large plants out of their dark corners and cleaning the cobwebs behind them. Investigations into various cupboards don’t reveal any sinister chewed up hearts, but Aziraphale reminds himself that wicked things are probably hidden more carefully than behind a bag of flour. Anathema is first back, and Aziraphale has just finished putting the evening stew in the oven to slow cook when she runs up the steps.

“It’s okay, it’s not Newt!” she shouts excitedly, and grabs Aziraphale’s hands to dance around Adam. “Oh my god, I was so worried when he came in talking about this perfect guy in Tadfield, but it’s okay Aziraphale! Newt says he’s never heard or seen Crowley, isn’t it good?” 

“Great!” Not having a clue what was going on, Aziraphale starts to smile from her infectious relief. “Well done, my dear. And who’s Newt?”

She sighs. “He’s an absolute darling. Sometimes he’s got a little bit of a furry problem, but he treats it well. And he’s so kind, and sweet, and he’s absolutely hopeless but I love him.”

“That’s wonderful dear,” Aziraphale says, watching as she twirls around the kitchen. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh yes, please.” They settle down at the table around steaming cups of tea, Aziraphale flicking through a newspaper he picked up at the market, and Anathema hunting through one of her spell books. It should be scary how quickly these four walls have become familiar to him, and Aziraphale tries to remember that he’s only there until his curse gets broken, hoping that the girls are managing the bookshop well in his absence. His thighs do seem to be adjusting though, and his knees aren’t quite so achy, which he puts down to the warmth that Adam throws out.

“Tadfield door,” Adam says behind them, and they look up. Crowley slinks in with a few bags, and Aziraphale wonders if the way his hips moved was intentional or just part of being a wizard. 

“Gotta do another spell for Jenkins before Tuesday, he’s gone and used it on the wrong horse,” Crowley says, head in the pantry. He puts a few things away and tosses Anathema a lightweight cloth sack. “How did you get on?”

“Alright,” Anathema replies. “Pepper wanted double the usual for the oxen blood, but when I said we could get them from Wensleydale next week she backed down.”

“Good.” Crowley sniffs the air and pushes his sunglasses further up his nose. “Something smells good.”

“Oh, that would be dinner,” Aziraphale says and regrets speaking when Crowley turns to face him. Knowing Aziraphale’s luck, Crowley would have forgotten all about him since breakfast, and would now ask him to leave. “There’s some frittata in the pantry if you’d like some lunch though?”

“Nah, but thanks. There’s some sweets for you, Adam. Don’t eat them all at once.” Crowley upends another bag into the fire, and Adam guzzles down some jelly worms, sparking red and gold around the hearth. “And got you a cream cake from Cesaris,” Crowley says, holding out a white paper bag towards Aziraphale without looking at him. 

“Oh, how lovely! My favourite, thank you,” he says with a smile, before snatching his hand back. “Wait. It’s not poisoned is it?”

Crowley laughs. “God, you’re suspicious. No, it’s not poisoned. One hundred percent poison free.”

“Only a poisoner would say such a thing.” He narrows his eyes at Crowley who merely smirks back, but the cake wins out in the end. “Well then. In that case. Thank you.” He can’t shake off his feeling of deep suspicion, and yet the cake looks fine. It also tastes darn good and exactly how they normally tasted, so Aziraphale appeases himself with the knowledge that he probably wasn’t going to drop down dead in an hour or so.

“You’re very welcome. I’ll be back for dinner. Oh, and whatever you do, try not to destroy the bathroom too much?” Crowley lifts his eyebrows. “There’s a few bottles in there I’d rather not get mixed up.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes flick involuntarily to Crowley’s rich red air, artfully curled with soft tips. It was probably bespelled to allure the girls, and the sooner Aziraphale poured those bottles away, the better. 

“Of course,” he replies, lying through his teeth. He spends the afternoon giving the kitchen a deep clean, and realises that thankfully the dark colour on the walls wasn’t soot as originally thought, but instead the paint colour. Despite it being clean and tidy, the kitchen could do with a bit more light and he’s sure the plants would appreciate it. With Adam’s blessing, he whitewashes the ceiling and steps by the door and by the time he’s finished it’s early evening. The street lamps outside light up as dusk falls, spilling light into the kitchen while Anathema finishes the spell she’s working on. Aziraphale sets aside a bowl of stew for Crowley, who has disappeared since lunch, and Adam kindly heats up some water for him.

When he gets back from the shower the under stairs area has been set up with a camp bed crammed in the small space, separated from the rest of the kitchen by a curtain. There’s a basket of new clothes as well, and Aziraphale falls upon them with glee and a little bit of puzzlement. Since Crowley had weaselled his way out of answering directly, Aziraphale looks to Adam for answers instead. 

“Does this mean he’s going to let me stay?” 

Adam shrugs. “Bugger if I know. I just live here.”

“Probably,” Anathema says. “I think he goes by Adam.”

“I think it’s very nice of him.” His new camp bed is a little bit rickety but the pyjamas fit his shoulders perfectly. Hooves just starting to ache, he sits and surveys the rest of the kitchen from his cupboard, and thinks that maybe he’d be quite happy here.

“Oh no, don’t let him hear you say that,” Anathema shushes him. “It’s part of being a wizard. You have to be wicked, you understand. The eviller you are, the better a wizard.”

“I see. Goodnight, Anathema.”

“Night.” She blows out the candles on the table and heads upstairs, floorboards creaking underfoot. Aziraphale watches the shadows play on the wall as Adam amuses himself with a particularly long twig, before gently tugging the curtain shut.


	3. In Which Aziraphale Has Some Incidents

Distant murmurings drag Aziraphale back from a pleasant dream he was having, where he had two human legs and was apparently getting a foot massage. Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, he grows aware that someone was talking quietly in the kitchen beside him, and is about to make himself known when he picks up a few words of what the person is saying. 

"...pathetic... a worthless excuse for... You're a disgrace... Terrible..."

Someone was clearly was threatening somebody else. The voice gets angrier and Aziraphale recognises it with a start as Crowley’s, and righteous fury rages through him. 

"Get it together. You're useless!" 

How dare he talk to Adam like that. Or heaven forbid, Anathema. There's not much in the cupboard that he can use to defend himself or them, but he can certainly try. He berates himself for getting lulled into complacency with a warm fire and new clothes, and forces himself to remember that he was in the company of a heart-eater. Don’t let your guard down when you sup with the devil, he reminds himself, and summons the courage to get up.

"Awful. Do it better next time." 

Crowley’s voice grows distant and seems to move into another room that Aziraphale hadn’t yet explored, and Aziraphale takes the opportunity to open his curtains. He can't see Crowley or Anathema, but he picks up a frying pan by the fire where Adam is slumbering, and tiptoes across the floor. 

"You're a disgrace, you know that? I ought to cast you out right now," Crowley snarls in the distance. Taking a deep breath, Aziraphale raises the frying pan and attempts to take Crowley by surprise. Anathema deserves better than to be threatened every morning, and they can go back to the bookshop if they have to, in order to get her away from this wretched man. He jumps through the doorway to where Crowley is shouting at someone.

Or something. 

"And what's more, you petunias can go fuck yourselves, look how limp you are! Utterly disgusting, oh good morning Aziraphale, sleep well?" Crowley turns from where he is leaning over a small potted plant, and smiles at him with sunglasses on his head. Aziraphale stares, stuck to the spot. The room he hadn't seen was a greenhouse, full of palms and lilies, with a sweet scent floating through the air that can only be the honeysuckle climbing up a distant wall. The walls are thick glass, hazy with age but still letting in light for the plants, and Crowley sets down his plant mister. "Did you need something?" 

"I... What? Where's Anathema?" He looks around bewildered at the lack of anyone else in the room, and Crowley shrugs. 

"No idea. She normally gets up as late as possible. She’s a terrible apprentice, really.”

"But I heard..." Aziraphale trails off, and realises he'd never actually heard anyone responding to Crowley. His cheeks grow warm as Crowley raises his eyebrows at him, golden eyes bright with mirth. "I must have been mistaken." 

Crowley makes a gesture with the plant mister to the rest of the room. "Well, you're welcome to have a look around. There's a tap somewhere if you want some water, but uh, no fire out here I'm afraid." Crowley smirks, and Aziraphale grits his teeth.

"Thank you,” he says stiffly and sets the pan down on a trestle filled with empty plant pots, seedling trays and watering cans. It seemed that Crowley found his frying pan rather amusing, and Aziraphale watches as he turns back to his plants. The room itself is small but beautiful, every inch filled with luscious greenery and the occasional bloom. There's a quiet hum in the air, and up near the glass roof is a vent where bees are going in and out. Runners twine their way up trellises and occasionally overrun on the concrete floor, and Crowley stops at a large peace lily to give it a good watering. And apparently, also a good threatening. He looms over it and Aziraphale looks away quickly as he realises that maybe he shouldn’t be leering at a wizard’s backside, even if it was a work of art. 

"Now you, mister, are on thin ice." The leaves start quivering and shaking under his glare, and Crowley pokes at the base of the plant. "Any more of this fungal nonsense and we'll be forced to take desperate measures, won't we, hmm? It'll be straight out in the cold for you, or perhaps Adam would like a few words?" The plant almost seemed to beg Crowley for another chance, and he continues to the next one. There doesn't seem to be a need for the frying pan, and Aziraphale picks it up again and backs out the greenhouse quietly. 

Once he finds his way back to the kitchen, Adam is awake and rapidly consuming another log. Anathema comes downstairs yawning as the porridge is coming off the small stove, and he piles up some eggs on the table as well. With the shutters open and a white ceiling, the kitchen looks much more approachable and welcoming, the slate floor and dark walls somehow working well with the greenery piled in odd places. Now he’s looking for them, Aziraphale spots several ferns and trailing plants coming from pots hung up on beams and tucked away on shelves.

Crowley comes back without the plant mister, and snarfs a few eggs off the side before he disappears again, presumably out the door. Starting to sense a pattern to their day, Aziraphale heads out to the market and returns later with a lighter wallet and more cleaning supplies. The kitchen is already brighter, and he doesn’t want to touch the greenhouse or small back yard yet, so he starts to clean the stairs and hallway. He gets halfway towards the bathroom when he stops with a shock.

A big black snake lies across the landing, and he eyes it carefully. He wouldn’t put it past Crowley to have a plastic one made to scare Anathema or any visitors, and he watches it for any kind of movement. After a few minutes, he takes a step towards the door nearest him, and the snake’s tongue flicks out.

“Oh! You are alive then.” Aziraphale backs away so the door is behind him. “What a beauty you are though. Look how lovely your scales are.” The snake doesn’t respond, but the forked tongue flicks in and out occasionally. Getting bolder, Aziraphale crouches down. Through all his field guides and native fauna books, he’s never seen a snake quite like this one, and he’s intrigued by the iridescent black scales covering its back.

“You’re very pretty,” he tells it. “Could I please go into the bathroom? You see, I’d really quite like to paint the walls in there, it’s ever so dark and dingy, I could hardly see the mirror.” The snake just stares back at him, and Aziraphale edges around it slowly. Once he’s finished whitewashing the walls, making the shower seem ten times bigger, the snake is gone, and Aziraphale wonders if he’d imagined it. He makes a fish pie for dinner, and that night a little chest of drawers appears next to his bed under the stairs.

As the summer days lengthen, the hours seem to fly by, and Aziraphale starts helping Anathema out with spells for the customers who come to the door. Growing competent at ship-safe and shoe-shodding spells, he searches for any sign of fawn related curses but he can’t find anything in the vast array of books that litter the table and stairway. Crowley will dash in and out as they’re working, dragging various alchemy ingredients behind him, and occasionally dumping them all in Anathema’s lap. They sell a few big spells to the royal palace, where a prince has apparently gone missing, and Crowley begins to spend even more time preening in the bathroom. Adam often has to make hot water for his bath, and Aziraphale gives up on having regular meal times as Crowley’s often out in the evening. He suspects he’s after the boy in Tadfield, which he hopes isn’t Michael, but Anathema dismisses it instantly. 

“No, that one’s old news. I think there’s another one now, a man from the city?”

“The banker, right?” Adam suggests.

“Yeah, what was his name? Galadriel?”

With a sinking feeling, Aziraphale makes a shot in the dark. “Gabriel?”

“That might have been it.” Anathema snaps her fingers. “Apparently he’s got a hot brother somewhere and Crowley was going to go sneak into the brother’s good books, but then got caught up in the other one.”

“Oh no.” Aziraphale can’t help the whimper that escapes. 

“You alright?”

“Hmm? Oh, well. Yes, perfectly fine, sorry.” If he looks at it rationally, Aziraphale knows that Gabriel would chew up and spit out Crowley in an instant, but the wizard has a sort of charm to him that might make even the toughest exterior crack. “Just… Concerned. For the poor boy, you know.”

Anathema shrugs. “Feel sorry for us. We’re the ones who have to deal with the tears.”

Nodding disbelievingly, Aziraphale thinks that he has never seen Gabriel shed a tear in their entire lives, not even when he fell off the step ladder when they were children and shattered his forearm. He ponders this new development for the rest of the day while cleaning out the stove, and steadily gets more and more grumpy. It was just his luck that the only man in his life was not only interested in one of his brothers, but both of them. Cursing away to himself, he polishes the woodwork on the stairs viciously and scrubs the bathroom from floor to ceiling. He might have knocked a few pots off along the way, but their crashes were almost cathartic to his angry little heart. 

Tired with aching hooves by the evening, Aziraphale and Anathema sit down for the night with a few books next to Adam, who is recalling a demon battle in ballad form. They don’t hear Crowley come back in, and Aziraphale is just explaining to Anathema about the perfect soufflé when a shriek from upstairs alerts them that something was very, very wrong.

“Aziraphale! Whatever did you do to my HAIR?” Pounding down the stairs, Crowley runs straight to Aziraphale and sticks his head in his face. “Look! It’s ruined!”

“It’s rather blond,” Aziraphale notes, suppressing a smile. The normally red hair had taken on a beach-blonde shade, with perfect curls more befitting an angel than a wizard. “I wouldn’t say ruined.”

“Ruined! It’s a disaster, how am I meant to be seen with this?” 

“Maybe try a hat?” Aziraphale says dryly, and lifts a hand to inspect a curl. “It’s really not that bad, Crowley, don’t be so melodramatic.”

Crowley collapses on a nearby chair, staring into the fire. 

“It’s awful,” he moans again, covering his face with his hands. “I’m not a blond! I’m not even a strawberry blonde!”

“I do think it’s nice.”

“Oh yes? I suppose you thought that the pots in the bathroom were just there for decoration? And didn’t I say not to fiddle? My hair looks awful. I’ll never be beautiful again, and what will everyone say?”

Aziraphale, who had never considered himself beautiful, immediately stops feeling guilty as Crowley continues to moan. “Come on now. Pull yourself together, it’s not so bad.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it, oh for heaven’s sake, it’s like having a conversation with a toddler.” Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “I’m sorry I moved the pots, but really, what do you expect? It’s chaos in there.”

“Yeah but _I_ know where everything is.” Crowley pouts and Aziraphale almost giggles at the sight of the infamous wizard Crowley in a bath towel, blond curls and a face grumpier than a pug. He slumps back upstairs and Aziraphale shakes his head as he watches him go. As soon as he was out of sight, Anathema bursts into laughter.

“Oh my god, did you see his face?” she says between giggles. “Never, ever leave us, Aziraphale, that was brilliant.”

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” 

“He’ll be fine. He’s had his way for too long, it’s about time someone shakes things up around here.” Anathema eyes him with appreciation. “I reckon he’ll moan for another day or so, then it’ll all be forgotten.”

Sure enough, Crowley is back to his smirking ways the next morning, and his new hair has been changed yet again to a black shade with red hints running through it. He even takes Aziraphale out to the market and holds his basket while they inspect each stall, and Aziraphale suspects he must have a new sweetheart in Porthaven. Anything that moves Crowley away from his brothers was a good idea in Aziraphale’s mind, and he happily watches Crowley flirt with most of the fishing village. Aziraphale learns that Crowley has a wicked sense of humour and has to stop himself from chuckling as he makes a running commentary around the harbour. He buys Aziraphale a few books, chucking them in the basket as if they were worthless but paying the bookseller far more than he needed to.

Back at the castle, Crowley disappears again and Aziraphale spends a pleasant evening picking out which of his new books he was going to read next, before quickly realising he should put the rest of the shopping away. When he comes back from the pantry to the kitchen, the snake is back. 

“Oh Adam, by the way, is it tame?” Aziraphale waves a hand towards the snake wound around the centrepiece of the table, and Adam coughs.

“Tame? That? Hah!” He snorts again, but quietens down as the snake rears its head. “Oh, yes, I suppose so. Very tame.”

“A pet then?”

“In a way,” Adam says meekly. “I bet you could stroke it if you want. He won’t bite. Much.”

Aziraphale slowly reaches a hand out to the snake, and when it doesn’t do much other than taste the air, he gently runs a hand down its spine. “It’s warm,” he notes in surprise.

“Probably been sunbathing,” Adam says, huffing out a flame. “Wish I could do that.”

“You’re quite literally a fire, my dear.” The snake nods its head next to Aziraphale as if it could understand them, and rears up to rest against Aziraphale’s arm. The rest of its body uncurls on the table and Aziraphale watches as it delicately pokes its tail at his arm. “You’d like to come up here? Alright then.” The snake winds its way up Aziraphale’s arm and he takes them both over to the fire where Adam is watching with wide eyes. Snake settled in his lap, he goes back to his book and waits for the others to come in for dinner.

Anathema is first back, and calls from the door. “Only me! I brought a friend too.” She shuts the door behind her and a large black dog trots in by her side. Aziraphale stares, and the snake in his lap lifts its head onto his arm to peer at the dog.

“Picking up stray dogs now?” Adam snorts. “Does this mean I’m finally allowed to keep the fawn?”

“What? Oh, no. This is Newt,” she says proudly. The dog whines by her side and cocks its head at them, and Aziraphale is pretty sure he misheard her. 

“Newt? Your, ah, amour?”

“Yep,” she says with a nod. “We were planning on coming over today but it’s that time of the month and he ran into his little furry problem. But I don’t think it matters, because if you love someone, you love all of them, right?” She looks happily at Aziraphale, and he tries to work out how to let her down gently.

“Anathema,” he says quietly. “This is a dog. Now I’m not sure about witches, but generally we don’t condone bestiality in human society-” The dog barks loudly and Adam cackles from the fireplace.

“Heavens no!” Anathema gapes at him. “He’s just a little inconvenienced at the moment. It’s full moon, you see.” She raises her eyebrows pointedly as if that should mean something, and Aziraphale takes a while to catch up.

“Oh! So Newt is a uh, were-dog?” The dog barks again in reply, tongue lolling to one side, and Aziraphale addresses him instead. “My apologies, Newt, it’s lovely to meet you. Will you be joining us for dinner?” The snake in his lap sneezes and he jumps, having forgotten about his new reptilian friend. The dog gives a yappy bark and Aziraphale figures that it’s a yes for dinner, and carefully gathers up the snake in his arms. Snake set down next to the fire, Newt-the-dog eyes it warily but ends up sat on a chair at the table, being handfed by Anathema for the rest of the evening.

The snake is gone again the next morning, and when Aziraphale is setting out the plates he hears Anathema sneak Newt down the stairs. They’re obviously trying to be quiet, and Aziraphale doesn’t want to spoil their fun, so he obediently lays the table and purposefully doesn’t look around. There’s much giggling by the door, and he smiles, wondering if Michael and Gabriel are as happy. He really should go and visit Michael, but he thinks that maybe the horns would be a bit too much. He couldn’t bear it if they didn’t recognise him.

Aziraphale is halfway through one of his new books and Anathema is poring over a spell manuscript at lunchtime when the door chimes.

"Only me," Crowley says behind them, shuffling in sideways with a cardboard box. "Just uh, going upstairs. Having a bath. That sort of thing." He coughs and Aziraphale thinks he can hear something else coming from the box. Setting down the scripture, Anathema narrows her eyes at Crowley, and he shuffles towards the stairs.

"What do you have there, Crowley?" Aziraphale thinks that Anathema would make a very good teacher, endowed with the power to make five-year olds give her whatever was in their grubby little hands.

"Nothing,” Crowley answers quickly. “Just. Bath stuff.” The box shifts in his hands, as if something inside was moving it. 

Anathema sets her hands on her hips. "Really?" 

"Yep. Bath stuff." He nods and shifts a hand to the top of the box to hold it down. "I'll just be off now."

"Hold up." Anathema crosses quickly over to him and he turns away, the box pressed against the wall. "Show me." 

"Hmm. No,” he says deliberately. Anathema grabs Crowley’s elbow and twists it upwards slowly. "Ow ow, okay fine! Here." He opens one of the cardboard flaps and a beak sticks out. Aziraphale looks over Anathema’s shoulder at a clutch of ducklings, yellow and small, with beady black eyes. As soon as they see the light they start to cheep furiously, and Aziraphale falls in love.

"Oh my, aren't you gorgeous?" They nibble on his finger and he lets them. “Why ever do you have a box of ducklings, Crowley? Don’t tell me you need to grind them up for a spell or something.”

Crowley looks aghast. “Course not. They’re going to live in the bath.” He takes a pot out of another bag and pours in some food at one end of the box, and the ducklings rush over.

“Good.” Aziraphale watches as they take turns at the food bowl. “Hang on, did you say the bath?”

“They’re a bit small for the yard right now,” Crowley says as Anathema groans. “We can put them outside when they’ve got some feathers coming through.”

“Crowley, why on _earth_ have you brought these home? Who’s going to look after them? I have enough to do,” Anathema asks with a frown.

“I will,” Crowley replies. “They’ll be fine! And then we can have roast duck at Yule. After all, they were abandoned,” he says reproachfully. “It would be a waste of good duck meat.”

“How wonderfully altruistic of you.” She picks up a duckling and starts to smile. “They are rather sweet.”

“Don’t know what you mean. We need something to keep the weeds down in the back yard. Plus, they’re all bastards.”

“Really?” Anathema looks amused.

“Yes,” Crowley says indignantly. “They nibbled all the buttons on my coat. Anyway, we’re going to eat them all, it’s evil genius really.”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale considers him as Anathema strokes a cheeping duckling, and Crowley narrows his eyes back.

“What?”

“You know what, my dear, I don’t think you’re hardly as evil as you say you are.”

“What do you mean?” Crowley snorts. “I’m the worst wizard out there. In more than one way.”

The ducklings do indeed spend the night in the bath, and run around frantically every time one of them opens the door. Crowley quickly realises that he can’t wash his hair while they’re in the tub, and in the morning they are reallocated out to the yard by unanimous decision. Aziraphale could spend hours watching them plodding around their shed, and they seem to grow an inch a minute, soon becoming straggly teenager ducks with feathers sticking up everywhere.

After shutting them up one night, Aziraphale notices a new desk in the cupboard under the stairs, and he doesn’t question how such a previously small space could now fit the equivalent of a normal bedroom. He doesn’t quite know whether he should thank Crowley or curse him for being altogether too nice a host, and ends up saying nothing at all. As he gets used to his new legs, he gradually forgets about the curse, only occasionally knocking his horns on the various beams in the castle, and his frantic searching for curse breaking through the magic books slowly becomes a study of the various types of magic that inhabit the land around them. 

He doesn’t realise that he’s become part of the household until Anathema lays a plate out for him every night and Crowley starts to give him small spells to put together for the customers. Adam chats to him every night as he reads in the evenings, and the others will occasionally join him by the fire. Crowley takes to pointing out the plot holes in the books he’s given him, drawing him into long debates where Aziraphale ends up flustered and red while Crowley just smirks back as if he knew he was right all along. It’s odd, but he doesn’t question it, enjoying life in the castle for what it is.

Crowley’s threatening the plants in the kitchen when Aziraphale comes back one morning with the groceries, and he looks up with a smile.

“Aziraphale, perfect. Come on, we’re going out.”

“Out? Where?” Aziraphale quickly dumps the bags and gets his coat. “How long for?”

“You’ll see,” Crowley says with a smile. Turning the door to Soho he nudges Aziraphale out into the crowded street. The streets are narrow but not at all similar to Tadfield, and Aziraphale gapes at the colourful window displays and people rushing past. A few of them turn to stare at him, and he realises self-consciously that they’re looking at his set of horns and hooves, and he tugs his shawl a bit tighter. Crowley frowns and considers him.

“You alright?”

“Fine, fine. Thank you.” Aziraphale tries to smile and a woman going past looks him over and then quickly away when Aziraphale catches her staring, muttering something about a Halloween.

“Is it the horns?” Crowley gestures to Aziraphale’s hair. “I can always put a glamour on them, if you’d prefer?”

Aziraphale hadn’t considered that. “Oh. That would be nice.”

“No worries.” Crowley flicks his fingers and a tingling feeling passes over Aziraphale’s scalp and down his legs. He reaches up and can still feel the horns there, but people are no longer looking at him as if he was any different. “Better?”

“Much so. Thank you.”

“People can be judgemental little shits sometimes, you know. But you shouldn’t let them get to you,” Crowley says, leading them down an alleyway.

“But I-” Aziraphale’s tongue twists itself in knots as he tries to explain that he wasn’t always this way. He gives up on that train of thought and instead concentrates on where his feet are stepping on the cobbles. “They can be, indeed. Where are we going, be the way?”

“Aha!” Crowley turns in the street and beams at him. “It’s a surprise. Though I can tell you that I’m taking you to lunch.”

“Wonderful!” Aziraphale can’t contain his excitement at the thought of something that A. Was a new experience, and B. That he didn’t have to cook. “But what about Anathema? Doesn’t she want to come?”

“Nah,” Crowley says with a shake of his head. “She’d happily exist on beans and toast if you let her, despite her moanings.”

“In that case, lead on.” They pass window boxes and grubby steps, Aziraphale staring at the strange clothes and large horseless carriages along the street. They look a bit similar to what was underneath the castle on the moors, and he wonders if Crowley had been inspired for it from here. “Adam mentioned you’re from around here?”

“Yep, good ol’ London town.” Crowley inhales deeply and winces. “You never quite get the smell out your nose.”

“It’s lovely,” Aziraphale replies, but he knows Crowley can tell he’s unconvinced.

“I like London, but it’s never liked me,” he says, looking up at the tall buildings either side of them. “Ah shit, I think we’ve gone too far. Hang on.” They turn around and trundle back to the corner where a small shop has its doors open. “This is it.”

Crowley walks inside and Aziraphale follows, bending his head to get through the low doorway. The inside is busy, with almost every table full, and the smell of cooking hits Aziraphale like a wave. Stomach rumbling, they are led to a table and Aziraphale scans the other plates to see what everyone else is eating. He doesn’t understand half the words on the menu, and Crowley seems to take pity on him.

“Shall I order for us both? The udon noodles are amazing, if you’re undecided.”

“There’s such a lot here,” Aziraphale says, turning another page. “I’m sure you know better than anyone what to order. I don't like mustard, but apart from that I'm not too fussy."

"Rice or noodles? Or both?"

"I don't mind."

"Both then, we can share." Crowley orders them something that Aziraphale hasn't heard of before, and they chat quietly while waiting for the food. When the waiter comes back, Crowley puts his sunglasses on the table and rubs his hands with glee.

“Ah, starters! Thank you,” he says to the waiter and pushes the plate to the middle of the table. “Try this, it’s salmon sushi.”

“Soo-shi?”

“It’s nice, promise.” Crowley passes him a small piece of rice in what looks like green paper, and Aziraphale bites it carefully. 

“Oh!” He can’t help exclaiming as the flavour floods his mouth. “Oh my!”

“It’s good, huh?” Crowley flashes a smile at Aziraphale, and he gives him another roll. “Wait ‘til we get to the ramen.”

They share steaming bowls of rice and hot soup for the main course, with thick noodles and crisp vegetables. Aziraphale is already making plans for future recipes that he's going to adapt from their lunch, and he tries everything at least twice. His eyes follow a noodle as Crowley slurps it up, and he looks away as Crowley licks his lips, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks. Idly wondering what's got into him, he could only think of a few reasons why he was behaving like a love-struck teenager on a first date. 

He's sure he would have noticed if he was under a spell, but why else would he be so transfixed by Crowley, his golden eyes, the lazy way he sprawled over the chair and the delicate way he moved his hands. And why else would Crowley listen to what Aziraphale was saying, smile at his jokes and take his out to lunch? His traitorous mind can actually think of another reason, but he dismisses it as preposterous. You couldn't expect wizard’s hearts to work the same way as humans, after all.

They order desert and Aziraphale practically drools over a delicate souffle. Lunch can't last forever though, and soon enough they're meandering back to the castle door, a small entrance cunningly hidden next to a florist. Crowley lags behind and when they get back to the kitchen he unveils a posy of daisies he’d bought on the way. Anathema raises her eyebrows as Aziraphale places them on the table, and he doesn’t see Crowley for the rest of the day. The snake, however, appears under the table and Aziraphale passes it a few scraps from dinner, hoping furiously that rice wasn’t poisonous to reptiles. The daisies last an unnaturally long time, and he can’t help smiling whenever he sees the yellow faces turning towards the sun. After all, being the oldest means he’s _bound_ to fail sooner or later, it shouldn’t be such a surprise he’s being happily bewitched by Crowley’s wickedness.


	4. In Which Aziraphale Steals a Heart

Aziraphale wakes one morning to find the floor next to his bed covered in thick goo, extending from the walls out to the curtain. He prods it with a hoof tentatively, and with no other way around it, squelches down. Dressing quickly, he opens his curtain to find the rest of the kitchen also covered in a layer of green, and a figure slumped at the hearth. 

"Help me," Adam whispers from the fireplace as the goo creeps towards him. "He came in last night, I couldn't wake you!" 

"What happened?" Aziraphale whispers back, poking at the slates surrounding the fireplace and carefully picking Adam up with a pair of tongs. After Adam is reallocated to a safe bread oven with plenty of wood, Aziraphale realises with a start that the figure lying on the chair is Crowley, complete with sunglasses and stylish leather coat which was no longer black.

"No idea. He declared everything awful and himself a dead man, so just a usual Monday. But whatever that stuff is is new. Must be worse than normal." Adam watches from the oven as Aziraphale approaches the slimy mass.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale lays a hand on Crowley’s shoulder to shake him awake and quickly withdraws his hand as a trail of sticky gunk covers him. "Heavens, that's disgusting. What's wrong?" 

Crowley mumbles something that may have been related to beef, socks or a combination of the two. 

"Okay, dear." Aziraphale glances at Adam who shrugs. "Say that again for me? I’m a little deaf in one ear, I’m afraid."

"They caught up." 

Adam suddenly flames high and goes pale yellow. "Oh no. This is bad."

"What? What is it?"

Crowley turns his head over on the table and faces away from Aziraphale. "Never meant to ask questions, why couldn't I just have shut up," he mumbles again, and Aziraphale would have put him down as drunk if it wasn’t for the utter despair radiating out from him. He rolls up his sleeves in preparation for dealing with the goop.

"Adam, shed some light here would you dear?"

"By they, he means the other wizards, Hastur and Ligur,” Adam replies. “A long time ago, me and Crowley struck a deal, and it may have backfired. Actually, I think it backfired almost immediately, but wizards are meant to be mean, and he’s never been mean enough.”

“The wizards of the waste? You mean they’re after you because you’re not evil enough? That doesn’t make any sense,” Aziraphale says. 

“It’s what they do,” Adam replies. “He didn’t want to work with them, and he got me out too. They put a curse on him years ago, we’ve been running ever since.”

“That’s so…” Aziraphale trails off and Adam finishes for him.

“Stupid?”

“I was going to say sad.” 

Crowley talks into the hearth some more, and Aziraphale attempts a conversation.

“Crowley, talk to me. What did you do tonight?”

“I ran,” Crowley replies. “Spent the night chasing them off. Everything hurts, Aziraphale.”

“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Do you want some food?”

“No.”

“Okay then, upstairs to bed with you. Let’s think things through when you’ve had a rest, yes?”

“No.” Crowley sighs and the goop bubbles out more. “It’s pointless.”

“Now then, no one is giving up yet. Still got plenty of things to do,” Aziraphale says brightly, watching as the green seems to rise from Crowley’s skin. “Nothing is as bad as it seems after some sleep. And perhaps a sandwich.”

“I’m doomed. We’ll have to move to the moon at this rate. Or perhaps Jupiter.”

Aziraphale sighs and tries a new approach. “Don’t be so silly,” he says, hands on hips. “Anyone would think they were knocking at the door right now and you’d given up.”

“Everything is awful and I’m going to get skinned alive by next Tuesday,” Crowley continues to moan, and Aziraphale’s patience snaps. 

“Right! That’s it! Upstairs with you.”

“What?” Crowley blinks blearily at him.

“We’re getting that gunk off you, and then you’re going to sleep for a day and figure out what to do. Save the castle, defeat the wizards, etcetera, etcetera. Come on!” With a silent apology to his shirt, he yanks Crowley upright and shoves him up the stairs. Manoeuvring him into the shower takes time, and Aziraphale slides the jacket off Crowley’s shoulders. It's nearly unrecognisable, but he sets it aside in case there's any leather magic that can fix it. He sets the shower above the bath running on warm and stands Crowley under the tap. Water running over his shirt, Crowley doesn’t say a word and Aziraphale worries that something has left him.

"C'mon my dear. Let's get some goo off, hmm?" Gently shampooing his hair, he scrapes as much as he can from Crowley’s head, and Crowley practically keens under his hands. "Sorry, sorry."

"'s fine," Crowley mumbles under his breath.

"Good or bad?"

"Mmph." Aziraphale decides that was an appreciative noise and continues to rinse the goop off. He knocks a hand against the ears of his sunglasses and pauses.

"May I?"

Crowley nods shakily and Aziraphale slowly slides his sunglasses off. Golden eyes blink at him, and Aziraphale is struck by the fondness that floods him, sweeping away any lingering annoyance about Crowley’s sulk. 

"Wash your face and then we'll get you dry, hmm?" He roots around in the airing cupboard for some clean towels while Crowley shakes as much of the goo off as possible while almost being fully clothed. After Aziraphale sits him by Adam to dry off, he shepherds Crowley upstairs to what Aziraphale assumes is his bedroom, a place he’d never seen past the door. He expects to see the snake or a large terrarium, but instead the room is light and airy, with minimal clutter on the surfaces except for a large pile of books under the bed. Crowley collapses onto the bed and Aziraphale closes the shutters, leaving just a sliver of morning light coming through.

“If you’re really that prepared to run away, you could always move to Tadfield. After all, the bakery’s very nice,” Aziraphale suggests, and Crowley snorts into a pillow.

“Don’t be silly, it’s too close, they’d find us in an instant.” He seems to ponder the idea. “Not a bad suggestion though. We could always move one of the shops, create a diversion spell.”

“Can you do that? Would it help?”

“Maybe.” Crowley blinks at the ceiling and closes his eyes. “Tomorrow. We’ll move tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Aziraphale backs out and closes the door, heading downstairs. He spends the rest of the day cleaning the goop up off the floor, scrubbing it hard and trying to explain to Anathema why there were currently four buckets of green goo in the yard outside next to the ducks. Anathema scurries out to warn Newt that she might not be over for a while, and Aziraphale keeps an ear out for Crowley stirring, but he must have been truly exhausted as he sleeps through the rest of the day and early evening. Aziraphale wonders whether he should do anything else that night to prepare for the next morning and pauses by Adam on his way to bed, who was singing yet another demon ballad.

“Do you think he’s okay?”

“Who? Crowley?” Adam scoffs. “Nah, never. But now you’re here he’s getting better.”

“Me?” Puzzled, Aziraphale wonders if they really hadn’t had any proper food before he arrived. “Why would he be better now?”

Adam tilts his head. “You do know he- actually, doesn’t matter, never mind. Go to bed.”

“He mentioned we may be moving in the morning.”

“Urgh,” Adam groans. “I hate moving days. It’s always the demon’s job and do I get any thanks for it? Nooo.” He continues to grumble as Aziraphale heads to bed, where his camp bed has turned into a sturdy queen since the morning. He enjoys the extra space for his strange legs, and yet still spends a restless night wondering about demons, wizards, and curses.

*

It turns out that they didn’t need to move the castle. The next morning, with a clatter and a creaking, the castle shakes around them and Crowley thunders down the stairs desperately tugging on a shirt. Heart seizing in his chest, Aziraphale jumps out of bed and doesn’t bother with the shawl, clattering out into the kitchen where Crowley is running around like a mad man.

“Adam!” Crowley calls to the fire where the demon is already awake.

“I know, I know, I felt it too! Get Anathema and Aziraphale out of here!”

“What? No, I can help!” Aziraphale stands in the middle of the kitchen twisting his hands as Crowley throws various pots together in a large saucepan and frantically mixes up powders and potions. 

“No, Aziraphale. You can’t.” He flicks his fingers and blue sparks jump from pot to pot, fizzling as they hit something at the bottom of them. The large cauldron near the fire is dragged out and he upends most of the smaller saucepans into it. “There, that’s a transport spell if the castle falls apart without me. Get Anathema!”

“I can’t just watch you fight the wizards of the waste and do nothing!” Aziraphale hears Anathema come down the stairs behind him and she makes an equally protesting noise. “Let us help you.”

“There’s nothing you can do, and I really can’t have you in the way.”

“I won’t be!” The shutters on the windows start to clash against the wall, and the morning light in the harbour turns dark and dreary as clouds rush up to cover the sun. Crowley throws an anxious glance outside and scoffs.

“Melodramatic fools. And no, Aziraphale, stay here. Don’t get in the way, and don’t interfere, for once in your life, please!”

“But, but-” he stutters as Crowley grabs a plant from a shelf, apologises to it, and starts to rip its leaves apart. He puts them in a bag along with a coal from the fire and curses under his breath. 

“You have to stay here. Because I finally have something I want to fight for, and I’m not running away anymore.” Crowley finally turns around and raises a hand to Aziraphale’s face, cupping his jaw. “I can’t lose you too.”

“Oh.” The bottom of Aziraphale’s stomach falls through the floor and gets trampled by metaphorical hooves. Crowley snatches his hand back and Aziraphale fights his instinct to grab it back again, instead leaning in to press a kiss against Crowley’s forehead. Crowley’s eyes are wild and staring, and Aziraphale reaches for the sunglasses on the table next to them and presses them into his hand. “Here. Go ‘kick some ass’.”

The corners of Crowley’s lips turn up in a slight smile and he glances away. “I can practically hear the quotation marks in your voice, you know.”

“I don’t care. Anathema is teaching me how to be trendy.”

“You’re already perfect.” The words fall out of Crowley’s mouth as if he doesn’t have any idea what they’re doing to Aziraphale’s heart, and he slides his sunglasses on. 

“You think?” 

“For sure. I gotta go.”

“I know. We’ll be here.”

“Stay out of this, Aziraphale, promise me.”

“I can’t make promises I can’t keep,” he replies honestly. “But don’t worry about us. Just be careful, and we’ll be okay.”

Crowley says nothing, glancing at Aziraphale’s lips, but before Aziraphale has a chance to close the gap between them the front door flies off the hinges and crashes onto the stairs. A gust of wind from the ocean sends the papers on the table flying, and Aziraphale has just enough time to grab a few before Crowley is gone, running out the door into Porthaven with his sack bouncing along beside him.

“I’m here!” Aziraphale hears him yelling from the street. “Come on you cowards, let’s take this outside!”

The storm replies with a crack of thunder, and the people on the streets take shelter under the eaves of the houses next to the quay, staring at the darkening sky with dismay. Aziraphale and Anathema rush over to watch from the window of the castle, Adam stretching up behind them to peer into the chaos outside. In the middle of the harbour a grey cloud descends, whipping up the sea as it swirls around, and Aziraphale can make out a murky figure or two standing in the middle with arms raised. He’s lost sight of Crowley, and he presumes he’s out on the quay somewhere, attempting to draw Hastur and Ligur away from the people.

Distant shouts echo through the town, and Anathema makes a gesture with her hands and suddenly they could hear every word out at sea. He looks at her with surprise and she shrugs. 

“Thought it might be useful. I mean, I never promised I wouldn’t interfere.” She and Aziraphale listen as the wizards search for Crowley, and the storm moves further out into the harbour. The wind rushes into the castle, bringing the stench that Aziraphale recognises from the bookshop, and Crowley continues to taunt them. Aziraphale bites a nail and Anathema glances around the kitchen as they listen in.

“Hah! Is that the best you can do?” Crowley dodges a stream of water mixed with an iridescent black sludge and sends back his own plume of magic. One of the wizards practically snarls at him and conjures a whirlwind to send him off balance. 

“You can’t fight ussss, Crawly,” one of the wizards says. 

“What’ssss the point?” the other asks.

“The point is, I don’t like you. And it’s Crowley, you dicks,” he grits out between shielding the sludge raining down on him. Throwing the fern leaves up in the air, Crowley disappears in a flash and the wizards whirl around for a second, before spotting him on the other side of the harbour.

“Hah! As if a name change will help you now, you will never be more than when we found you, the slimy serpent who couldn’t even control a fire demon without our help! You had to steal one instead, after all we’d done for you,” Ligur cackles. 

“And how did you repay ussss? By betrayal!” Hastur hisses.

“Adam was never yours to control!” Crowley shouts back over the wind. “Did you ever think that, huh?”

Aziraphale looks back at Adam in the fireplace, hunkering down under the logs, and his heart breaks for both of them. Anathema was rooting around under the table and through the shelves, breaking pots as she desperately shoved things aside.

“Here!” She pulls out a dusty orb from behind a set of scrolls, and holds it out for Aziraphale. “It’s not much, but it might be enough.”

“What is it?” He dusts off the surface of the ball with his sleeve and his own face peers back at him, reflected in the crystal. Adam rears his head in the fireplace and peers out as Anathema explains.

“You fill it with what somebody else needs, like money, food, energy, or anything really. If he starts to flag, we can give it our all.” Laying a finger on the crystal ball, she closes her eyes, and Aziraphale watches as a string of blue light seems to run from her fingertip into the centre of the ball, where it swirls for a moment before dispersing. “It’s not much, but it might do.” 

“Then we shall try,” he says grimly and they stand looking out to sea, broken door lying shattered beside the doorway.

Hastur sends a tidal wave towards the shoreline and the people scatter, Crowley diverting it at the last second. His movement makes him vulnerable on one side, and Ligur uses this to his advantage, sending Crowley spinning off the quay wall into the water below. Aziraphale gasps and Anathema grabs him to hold him back from running outside.

“He’ll be okay,” she says urgently. “He can swim. I think.”

Crowley surfaces with a splutter and conjures a wave to take him to the shore. “No one’s ever said no to you two before, huh?” he says, spitting out sea water and facing the wizards with a face like thunder. “Gonna give you one last chance to get out of here.”

“But why would we? After you, nothing stands in our Lord’sss way.” Ligur gestures to the shore. “That would hurt you, wouldn’t it, Crawly? Seeing your preciousss world turned to ash and dust.”

“You ever think why he sent you guys when he could have made his complaints himself?” Crowley dodges a new spout of grey liquid which dissolves the pavement beside him, rocks starting to crumble and fall into the sea. “You’re disposable.” He throws his hands out in front of him, the coal dancing in a suspended flame, and a fire ring encircles one of the figures standing on the ocean surface. 

Hastur howls. “You’ll pay for thisss! You bastardousss traitor, you-” The storm quiets and the wind dies down as Ligur consults quietly with Hastur. Crowley takes the chance to recover, coat dripping behind him as he holds the last of the fern leaves in a wet hand. They inch closer towards Crowley, and Aziraphale holds his breath, expecting an ambush at any second.

“Come now, you’ll never be normal, so why not join usss?” Hastur seems to have taken a new direction with his threats, turning to bribery instead. Aziraphale wills Crowley not to fall for it, and Anathema clutches his arm a little tighter. “You could be great, the greatest there’s ever been.”

“Crawly, we’re giving you one last chance to join the good side here,” says Ligur, oozing charm as if it was the green goo. “There’s nothing left for you here, our master will see you right again.”

“No.” A black trail of smoke whips itself up from Crowley’s outstretched hand, and winds its way towards the wizards. “I’m not a kid anymore. And you can’t get to Adam, so give up now.”

“In that case, we’ll destroy him and everything else you love,” Ligur replies, voice dripping with menace. “Wait, I forgot. You don’t love anyone, do you? Your black little heart couldn’t take it, and you know it.”

Crowley doesn’t reply, freezing to the spot, and Hastur laughs in surprise. “You do? That’s a change! You hearing this, my friend? Our little Crawly’s all grown up.”

Ligur sneers. “You think anyone’s going to love you back? You little creep, good for nothing but scavenging the leftovers from our table, you could never be loved.”

Aziraphale can’t bear it any longer. Ignoring Adam shouts, he rushes down the steps and out the door to the harbour, Anathema close on his heels. Waiting for Crowley to look his way, he tries to concentrate on the feeling of love in his chest, bubbling up from his soul, and willing it into the ball he’s holding. Anathema lays her hands on it as well, closing her eyes as she concentrates, and Aziraphale thinks of the tiny things that Crowley has done for them both, given them a home to come back to every night. Crowley frustrates him with his smirking and his eye rolling, making him feel as if they could argue for hours into the night, but he’s given Aziraphale adventure and a sense of family where he had none before.

At Ligur’s taunts, Crowley turns and glances towards the harbour and their gazes lock. Aziraphale can’t tear his eyes away, and he hopes that Crowley knows everything he can’t say, that he is loved and he does deserve this. The crystal ball pulses under their hands, and he jumps back when he realises that it’s full of red swirling smoke, mixed with what looks like cream dandelion seed heads. 

“Throw it!” Anathema shouts at him over the wind and Aziraphale runs to where the harbour has crumbled away. Crowley stands on the remaining flagstones, teetering on the edge and staring as Aziraphale lobs the ball as hard he can towards him. Catching it by the tips of his fingers, the orb rolls around Crowley’s arms, and he starts to smile. Raising it up, he considers the distance between him and the wizards, and leans back to throw. 

Hastur blanches. “Oh shit.” 

The crystal ball and wizards collide with an explosion of red smoke, scattering scraps of black material and dandelion seed heads over the harbour. As the smoke swirls over the sea surface, the wind dies down and the storm clears to reveal a blue sky with only a few white clouds at the horizon. The quiet is almost deafening, and the people next to Aziraphale start to mutter as the last of the smoke vanishes over the ocean, exposing shattered fishing boats and rocks sticking up through the surface where there were none previously.

“Crowley!” Running across the harbour wall, Aziraphale watches as he sways from side to side, and Aziraphale reaches him just in time, catching him by the shoulders as he slumps over. “Crowley, you did it.”

Crowley mumbles into Aziraphale’s shirt and Aziraphale holds him tighter. Anathema catches up with him, and between them they manage to walk Crowley slowly back to the castle, passing staring crowds along the way. Once they reach the kitchen, Aziraphale realises that they no longer have a front door, but Crowley raises up a shaking hand and snaps his fingers. As the door fixes itself back on, Crowley collapses, only Aziraphale’s arms keeping him from hitting the kitchen floor. 

Hooves tottering, Aziraphale attempts to wrangle him backwards to the nearest bed under the stairs, and gently lowers him down while Anathema rushes to Adam and sets a kettle nearby to warm. Crowley snuffles as if already asleep, and makes a grabby gesture towards Aziraphale. 

“Cold,” Crowley mumbles. 

Aziraphale berates himself for forgetting the cold sea water seeping into Crowley’s skin. “Of course, come here.” He ties back the curtain so the heat of the fire can warm them and persuades Crowley to get his wet clothes off. It’s a sign of how exhausted Crowley is that he makes no protest, and Adam frowns. Damp clothes removed and drying over the back of an armchair, Crowley drops his sunglasses on Aziraphale’s side table and flops backwards with his eyes closed. Aziraphale sits by the side of the bed next to Crowley, gently sliding a hand into Crowley’s palm. Shivering violently, Crowley’s hands shake as they clutch Aziraphale’s hand, and Aziraphale makes the decision that two bodies were better than one. The bed was big enough for two, and he puts another basket of logs where Adam can reach them before returning to the bed. Sitting up next to Crowley, Aziraphale feels him shiver through the blanket and then still.

“Aziraphale?” Eyes closed, Crowley turns onto his side to face him. “Do you mind if…” 

Assuming he was talking about the spooning, Aziraphale brushes a lock of hair off Crowley’s forehead and shakes his head before remembering that Crowley wouldn’t see it. “No, whatever you need darling.” 

“Thankssss.” Crowley’s body starts to shake and Aziraphale gapes as scales appear under his skin and burst through his hairline. Skin disappearing before his eyes, Aziraphale holds back a gasp as Crowley shudders and suddenly there’s a snake in his bed. It still has Crowley’s golden eyes, and he wonders how on earth he didn’t recognise him before. Aziraphale props himself up against the headboard and the snake curls itself around his abdomen, occasionally shaking from the cold, but quietening down as the night grows darker outside. Adam crackles away to himself in the hearth and Anathema seems to be fixing everything that was thrown around in a panic earlier, but Aziraphale doesn’t pay them any attention. He runs a hand gently over the snake’s back, and Crowley presses closer as they both drift off to sleep.

*

By dawn there are two human bodies in Aziraphale’s bed, and they spend the early hours dozing, wrapped around one another in exhaustion and relief. As Crowley continues to sleep, Aziraphale reads, flicking through the pages in vague interest while he curls an arm around Crowley. Occasionally Crowley will wake and turn over, and Aziraphale runs a hand through Crowley’s hair, fingers idly scratching at his scalp. Sighing, Crowley turns around and butts his head gently against the side of Aziraphale’s ribs.

“Mmph,” he mumbles as Aziraphale caresses the back of his neck.

“What’s that, dear?” Aziraphale suppresses a smile as Crowley raises a hand, waving it vaguely around him until it flops down. 

“Pet my hair and call me pretty,” he says a little more coherently. 

“Such a child.” Aziraphale smiles and plays with a longer lock of Crowley’s hair. “I do like this colour, even if you don’t. It’s beautiful.”

Crowley sighs, a long breath of air filled with pleasure. “I know,” he replies absently. 

Aziraphale can’t help but wrap his hair around his fingers, gently tugging it as Crowley drops off back to sleep. The colour in his hair has faded to a beautiful reddy black, and no matter how much Crowley complains, it matches his golden eyes perfectly. Aziraphale idly wonders what Crowley’s natural hair colour was, thinking that any colour would suit him, before pulling himself up short.

Oh dear. This wasn’t good at all. Aziraphale tries to carefully extract himself from Crowley’s octopus embrace and starts to panic. What was he doing, having _feelings_ for a wizard? Casual affection was easy to explain, lust even more so, but love? Love was a sure way to get your heart broken, and he was already in too deep to leave. 

He’s halfway sitting up when a sleepy arm wraps itself around his waist and drags him back down. Trapped between Crowley’s arms, Aziraphale thinks that there were worst ways to spend a morning, and that really, Crowley was quite warm and soft. And well, it wasn’t his fault if he happened to be bespelled. As Crowley’s breathing evened out beside him, he thought that hooves and horns weren’t so bad; after all, without them he wouldn’t have found the castle or Crowley. He could quite happily live with the hooves for the rest of his life if he got to keep the man who had since stolen such a large piece of his heart.

*

Late in the morning, Aziraphale wakes slowly to find himself being boiled alive. Almost every inch of him is sweating under the covers, with another hot body hugging him around the waist tightly. The only part of him that isn’t approximately the temperature of the sun is his feet, sticking out the end of the blanket into the chill morning air. 

His feet.

Aziraphale shoots upright and wrenches the covers off to reveal two perfectly normal legs. Crowley gives a groan next to him, and yanks the sheets back down.

“’s too early. Go back to sleep.”

“Crowley, look! It appears the curse lifted.” Aziraphale pokes at his knee in delight. “I have feet again, isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yeah? That’s great, love.”

“You don’t seem very surprised.” Aziraphale makes his best puppy-eyes as Crowley turns to face him, but he can’t help beaming at the sight of mussed up hair and half-closed golden eyes staring back at him.

“Okay, okay, it’s obviously morning time now.” Crowley rubs his eyes. "I’m a wizard, Aziraphale, I know a curse when I see one.” 

“And me? Did you know all along?”

“Of course I knew who you were. As soon as you said Tadfield, I remembered that beautiful bookkeeper who sold me a book I already had for the excuse to talk to him."

Aziraphale gapes at him. "But I..."

“I did have several goes at getting it off you. We tried to lift it, me and Adam, but without knowing the intricate details of the curse it's hard to find a way in. Your horns were getting shorter though, didn't you notice?" Crowley runs a soft hand through Aziraphale’s curls. “Now they’re gone completely, by the way.”

“So they are,” Aziraphale says, searching his scalp for any sign of bony growths. “And no hooves! Oh, this is fantastic.”

“Now it’s lifted you can tell me more,” Crowley says with a yawn. “What was the exact phrasing they used? I’m guessing it was the bastards of the waste who had something to do with it? Apparently someone must have seen me in the village that day.”

“Yes, they were the ones.” Aziraphale casts his memory back. “They mentioned it would be until someone loved me for who I was. Or something along those lines.”

“Huh. No imagination, those two.” Crowley snorts. “Love, you could have easily lifted that one yourself weeks ago. The curse itself is about acceptance, not romance. As soon as you accepted your little hoofie-woofies, it vanished. They were very cute, you know.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale thinks for a moment, and watches the light from the kitchen window reflect onto the bedsheets. “So… You don’t love me?”

“You idiot. Of course I do.”

“Oh,” he says again. “So _that’s_ what Adam was trying to say.”

“Probably. Welp, now we’re awake and you don’t have any inclination of letting me go back to sleep, you got any plans for this morning then?” Crowley stretches up to touch the headboard behind them, shirt riding up to reveal a strip of skin that Aziraphale wants to run a hand over. 

“Hmm. No, not yet,” he says, starting to smile. “Depends if the wicked wizard of the castle has any ideas, hmm?”

“Could go for a bit of defiling, I suppose. A couple of temptations. A little heart-eating.” Crowley grins and gestures towards the kitchen. “Could always eat a few ducklings for breakfast.”

“Crowley!” Fake shocked, Aziraphale pokes him hard in the ribs and Crowley retaliates by tickling his new knees. There’s a short wrestling match, which Aziraphale happily loses, and Crowley ends up declaring his victory as he pins Aziraphale down. Not surprisingly, Aziraphale doesn’t mind at all. He sighs as the sounds of reality start trickling in from the window, and thinks that they ought to be getting up soon.

“Breakfast, my dear?”

“Nah. We’re never leaving here again.” Crowley shows no sign of moving off of him, and Aziraphale huffs.

“I’m hungry. And I bet you are too.”

Frowning in concentration, Crowley flicks his fingers at the table, where a plate rises towards them and a hunk of bread cuts itself off and lands on it with some cheese. “There. Now you don’t have to get out.”

“Trapped here forever. How wicked of you.”

“I know, right?” Crowley smiles happily and Aziraphale doesn’t have the heart to push him off. 

“Fine. But you’ll have to feed Adam at some point too.”

A voice pipes up from the fireplace. “Yeah, I’m still here. Pull the curtain, you ingrates. Get a room.”

Crowley huffs and tugs the curtain across. Aziraphale wouldn’t have recognised it as the same cupboard his camp bed was first set up in, and he suspects that more than a little bewitching has been done to make the walls so much bigger than what he started with, fitting in a new set of shelves next to his desk and wardrobe.

“Nosy bugger,” Crowley grumbles. “Cheese?”

“Maybe a little bit. And a cup of tea would be lovely.”

Crowley whistles through his teeth. “Wanna go out and ask Adam to boil you some water after what he’s going to hear?”

“Why? What is he- Crowley!” With a laugh, Crowley flips them over so Aziraphale’s staring down at him, and he wraps his arms around Aziraphale’s neck, bringing him down towards him. Aziraphale closes the distance between them and kisses him gently, Crowley’s lips soft under his own. After what seems like hours, he draws back, smiling as Crowley blinks in befuddlement at him.

“Why did you stop?”

“Breakfast.”

“I brought you cheese,” Crowley says, affronted, and presses his lips to Aziraphale’s collar bone, peppering his neck with kisses. Aziraphale moans under his tongue and temporarily forgets about anything else.

“Yes, but,” Aziraphale gasps out between kisses, and gives up. “Oh, fuck it, come here.” He tugs Crowley closer and they explore each other as the morning lengthens, not caring what happens outside of the bedroom. Crowley is warm and wriggly, lighting Aziraphale’s skin on fire everywhere he touches, and Aziraphale doesn’t know why they didn’t do this sooner.

The rest of the world stirs outside the curtain, Anathema chatting to Adam in the kitchen and occasionally answering the door to concerned customers, but they don’t hear her. A particular loud knocking on the castle door has Crowley grumble and reluctantly drag himself up, narrowing his eyes towards the kitchen. A solid wooden door materialises where the curtain used to be, and Aziraphale realises that maybe it wasn’t just his heart which had been stolen. Affection in every touch, he doesn’t give it much more thought, and instead pulls Crowley back down. After all, he’s the oldest child. He’s got important things to do, such as attending to the enthusiastic wizard in his arms, and the rest of the world can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


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